University of Michigan School of Information
Ideal Clients and Projects
UMSI aims to be transparent in what makes a successful project and collaboration experience for students and clients.
Ideal/Successful Client Collaborations
- Client organization and points-of-contact are collaborative and responsive to students throughout the project
- Specific problem or issue already decided on, and clients are open to research and recommendations
- Primary and secondary points-of-contact are committed and communicative
- Client organization has 5+ employees
- Client can provide an introduction to stakeholders and users for interviews and data gathering if necessary to project success
- Client can provide access to organizational data, systems and resources necessary to project completion
- Client systems are stable (small updates during projects may be workable)
- Projects are important, impactful, and not mission-critical
- Clients agree to the client agreement (umsi.info/clientagreement)
Out-of-Scope Client Collaborations
- Updating social media content
- Creating videos or media
- Conducting market research
- Conducting focus groups
- Designing and deploying surveys (this is often part of a project, but this would not be the focus of a project)
- Program evaluation
- Data collection
- Data entry
- Developing/building entire websites
- Database/data source connecting (projects may have elements of these but this would not be the focus of a project)
- Large scale application deployments
- Projects that include upcoming launches or quickly shifting iterations (will majorly impact system stability for students)
- Digitizing or scanning documents and collections
Contact Us
Engaged Learning Office | [email protected] | (734) 763-1251
Please complete this form to submit a project proposal for one of our client-based courses or other programs, or to receive information about these opportunities throughout the year.